Text 2

Women are, on the whole, more verbal than men. They are good at language and verbal reasoning, while men tend to be skilled at tasks demanding visual spatial abilities. In fact, along with aggression, these are the most commonly accepted differences between the sexes.

Words are tools for communicating with other people, especially information about people. They are mainly social tools. Visual and spatial abilities are good for imagining and manipulating objects and for communicating information about them. Are these talents programmed into the brain? In some of the newest and most controversial research in neurophysiology, it has been suggested that when it comes to the brain, males are specialists while women are generalists.

But no one knows what, if anything, this means in terms of the abilities of the two sexes. Engineering is both visual and spatial, and it' s true that there are relatively few women engineers. But women become just as skilled as men at shooting a rifle or driving a car, tasks that involve visual spatial skills. They also do equally well at programming a computer, which is neither visual nor spatial. Women do, however, seem less likely to fall in love with the objects themselves. We all know men for whom machines seem to be extensions of their identity. A woman is more likely to see her car, rifle, or computer as a useful tool, but not in itself fascinating.

26. According to the passage, women are usually good at ______.

Part B

52. Directions:

Suppose your name is Wudong, write a letter to your local English-language newspaper giving your views on a discussion inspired by an article they published entitled "Why do We Need English?"

Your letter must be written in at least 200 words, excluding the addresses, etc. You should write dearly on ANSWER SHEET Ⅱ.

Part A

51. Directions:

You are planning to ask your friend to join an outing. Express your idea clearly as follows:

1) details about what you are going to do;

2) when and where you will go out.

You should write no less than 100 words and on ANSWER SHEET Ⅱ. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter.

You do not need to write the address.

49.______________________________

50.______________________________

48.______________________________

Part C

Directions: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET Ⅱ.

46)The teaching of English as a second language (ESL) in schools has had a history of conflicting arguments, interesting innovations and some very positive methodological changes. To understand the present situation, it is necessary to consider the past and the wider educational context which has a bearing on it.

Until quite recently, approaches to ESL work have been strongly influenced by methods developed to teach English as a foreign language to older learners. These methods placed much emphasis on drills, exercises and remedial programs that focus on language in abstraction. 47)The prescriptive nature of such methods and the demands they made on the teacher's time developed the belief that ESL work would be tackled only by the specialist ESL teacher working with small groups of children. 48)Such an approach does not fit comfortably into current notions of learning and teaching in the primary school, nor does it sufficientlv equip ESL learners in the secondary school to benefit from normal schooling. In prescribing what language is to be taught, it has ignored what children bring to the learning task and the choices they make about how and what they want to learn. Furthermore, the location and organization of language provision did not measure up to the demand. 49)The language centers and English language services all contributed to providing special and concentrated teaching of English as a second language in small groups, varying in size from four or five to fifteen, Whatever the pattern of provision, the main aim was to give pupils sufficient English to enable them to join normal schools as quickly as possible. The success of such special provision depended very much on the close and constant liaison of language teachers with the subject teachers and the class teachers and on the continuity of learning experiences provided by them. One of the important disadvantages of language centers and withdrawal groups was that ESL children were being taught away from those English-speakers who provide the most powerful models, i.e. their peer (地位相同的) group.

Peer group interaction is an important element in any learning situation, but its particular strengths in a classroom with ESL learners cannot be over-emphasized.

50)The separation of second-language learners from the main-stream classroom cannot easily be justified on educational grounds, since in practice it leads to both their curriculum and language learning being impoverished.

46.______________________________

47.______________________________

Part B

Directions: In the following ankle, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A—G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET I .

If the 20th century has been the American century, then there are plenty of people saying watch this space: the twenty first century will be different. The distinguishing characteristic of the post-cold-war world is that there is only one super power. 41) _______________.

The military muscle-flexing we have seen from China over the last few years could be an indication of how things are likely to go, although it has to be said that to many people's surprise the Chinese have been quite constructive over East Timor. But I think we must assume that the main struggle in the 21st century will be with China, already the world's largest nation. Happily, the Chinese seem to have no global pretensions. One can't see them interfering in some far-distant conflict, and in both military and economic terms they are still light years behind America.

42) _______________.

Europe is already the largest trading block in the world, 43) _______________. . It' s worth remembering that while Europe spends 60 per cent of what the USA does in defence, it has only 10 per cent of the Americans' firepower.

In the Middle East, in a relatively short space of time, bubbling conflicts have moved closer to resolution. The Arab Israeli dispute has been reduced to its core essentials, while agreement between Syria and Israel remains the strategic prize for peace. Iran is undergoing a slow transformation but the outstanding political issue here is Iraq and Saddam Hussein's extraordinary survival. The international community remains bitterly divided about what to do.

43._______________

39. Which of the following does the author most probably agree with?